Intermediate Plays

    Keywords: Tactics

Does Go have a concept of intermediate moves, to correspond to Zwischenzug in chess?

[Diagram]

A standard modern opening

This is an example (on the left side) brought up by Denis Feldmann on rec.games.go, in a quite normal opening pattern for modern pros. The game normally continues with White at a, after which Black can complete the joseki sequence in the upper left.

B9 does have a function in the way of a probe here. Should it be taken as having the character of an intermediate move, too? Might an ordinary translation into Go terms of the concept be as an interpolated kikashi?

Charles Matthews


I think a key difference between chess and Go in the analysis of this concept is that, in chess, there's a much more "instant" victory condition (checkmate rather than scoring). As an example, if a zwischenzug is a check, it _must_ be answered immediately (by virtue of the rules of the game). In Go, you can make a decision as to how big (i.e. how many points it's worth) a threat (or otherwise forcing) move is - and one might be right to ignore it in a way that one usually can't during a game of chess.

- Andrew Walkingshaw

Discussion moved to intermediate play - side example.


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